Header Menu

Columbia Law School shapes the legal profession’s future leaders. We prepare our students for professional roles in a broad range of areas, including academia, public service, advocacy, and business. Our graduate programs give students the opportunity to develop their scholarship and specialize in fields not fully covered in their previous coursework.

The Law School offers a broad selection of courses; during their time on campus students are encouraged to explore the breadth of our varied curriculum, and to delve into the University's unparalleled offerings too.

Our faculty members are the top practitioners and scholars in their fields, influencing the world through their government service, advocacy, legal practice, and numerous publications. Their experiences prove invaluable to students in their chosen courses of study.

Columbia Law School’s interdisciplinary faculty pursues innovative work that expands the understanding of the law and influences the global community. Their research also challenges students to think critically about their roles in addressing complex legal issues.

Columbia Law School students are in great demand. Highly regarded firms send recruiters each year to hire the next generation of standout associates, while social justice organizations, government agencies, and eminent judges’ chambers seek our accomplished candidates for highly competitive posts. Whether a soon-to-be Columbia graduate wants to become a law professor, work for the FTC, lead a human rights group, or someday run a venerable corporate law firm, our Morningside Heights campus is the place to prepare for the most desirable and fulfilling of legal careers.

Columbia Law School instills in students a cosmopolitan worldview that prepares them to be exceptionally capable, ethical, and resourceful leaders. Drawing unparalleled strength from the vast interdisciplinary resources of our distinguished university—as well as our New York City location—our students complete their legal training ready to engage the world’s most challenging issues.

Provocations from both Seoul and Pyongyang have escalated in the aftermath of the incident, although inflammatory comments have been a constant in tense regional relations.

The March 26 attack killed 46 sailors in South Korean waters. That made the torpedo strike a case of a "warship on routine actions being sunk without provocation,” Roh explained. “Under generally accepted principles of international law, this act could be interpreted as an act of war.”

Furthermore, Roh explained, “in terms of the general state of hostilities perpetrated by the North, this act now invokes a violation of the Armistice Agreement from the Korean War as well as the U.N. charter”.

The attack has led to widespread international condemnation, including from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, who warned Pyongyang of international consequences. North Korea has said any new sanctions imposed on it by the international community would be met with “strong measures, including a full-scale war”.

Roh said that was mostly a “standard response by North Korea to every act of hostility that it feels has been levied against them”. What makes this situation somewhat different, he noted, was the general “lack of rhetoric that usually has accompanied an official response to these kind of situations.”

Roh also pointed out that because North Korea is isolated from world trade and already faces heavy economic sanctions, the effect of new measures may be limited. “It is hard to take something away from someone who has nothing,” he said.

Yet sanctions would carry added weight during a time in which North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il “desperately needs to have credibility at home, and certainly a strong international response including sanctions will undoubtedly have an adverse effect domestically.”

The onus to act, Roh said, falls on China. “The U.S. “simply cannot pursue any meaningful action against North Korea without at least the tacit consent of China.”

“I would be surprised if China takes a strong position against North Korea on this,” Roh added, “but I would not be surprised if indirectly they ‘bow’ to international pressure against North Korea.”

Shifting his focus to Chinese officials, Roh said “this is an opportunity for China to really show itself to be a responsible member of the international community and perhaps even gain some leverage with the United States during its upcoming meeting.”

(written by Zachary Glubiak)

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins its traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, criminal, national security, and environmental law.